Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Title withheld so as not to ruin the tone

Eli wrote (and by wrote, I mean dictated) a story that he's very keen to share with you all. He's super excited about the prospect of online publishing, but, like any five year old with superhero values, is also a bit distressed that it could fall into the wrong hands... into the hands of bad guys. This story, you see, is intended for only the good guys among you. As he explains: "Bad guys should not read my story until they stop being bad and start being good." So, to all you bad guys out there, please read no further. Go devise some crazy plot for world domination or just plain ol' blow something up, but for the love of peace, justice and all else that is good in the eyes of my five year old, please do not read any further.

As for the rest of you, read on.

Chapter 1: Giant reptiles
Once upon a time, an early form of life evolved in the sea: bacteria. Eventually, Dimetrodon evolved on land. It was the biggest reptile of its time and ate any creature that couldn't get away on time. The next day, dinosaurs evolved. They were the biggest reptiles of them all. But they weren't the only giant reptiles of that time -- huge pterosaurs ruled the sky and marine reptiles harvested the ocean. Liopleurodon was a giant marine reptile which ate dinosaurs and sharks. A huge meteor slammed into the earth and marked the end of the dinosaurs.

Chapter 2: Giant birds and horses the size of cats
This is about what happens next. This is a world where birds eat horses. Giant birds catch tiny horses and break their necks. The birds aren't the only ones that eat horses. Ambulocetus is an ambush predator. It lives in the water and pops out to eat horses. It's a walking whale.

Chapter 3: Walking whales become the true masters of the sea
This whale hunted other whales. On land there were giant turtles.

Chapter 4: The ice age
Humans evolved and the earth turned cold.
Mammals had gotten more and more successful and smart until they were the biggest, largest, most spectacular animals on the planet. There were giant mammoths which were huge mammals. They were hunted and driven off cliffs by neanderthals, who are humans but a different kind of human from us. 65 million years before this, the giant sharks were the old monsters of the sea. Now there was another monster of the sea... the whale.

The End


Shortly after composing it, he decided it was not, in fact, complete, and asked me to add this chapter:

Chapter 5: The eyes of the storm
There was a giant storm that had eyes and big shark teeth and it smelled gross because there were big fat monsters in it.

The End


Phew. Saved by the twist ending. He'd fare well as a Hollywood screenwriter.

His story does have a title, but I've held back for fear that it would distract from the serious tone. It's called "A Flying Ass." A bit much, I know, but it's his story, not mine. I suppose I should just be pleased that he recognizes the importance of grabbing the audience's attention. "A Flying Ass" it is.

The impetus for his interest in evolution, by the way, is Walking With Prehistoric Animals, a very cool series we've been watching on netflix. As usual, the kid is obsessed. I'm pretty sure he pulled several lines verbatim from the series.

In other news, our baby chicks arrive tomorrow, Eli's two front bottom adult teeth have fully grown in, David continues to make pies, and Micah sings incessantly (he's good, too!). Three year old musical performance video coming soon. Wait! I know just what you need! More videos of my kids!